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E3, Star Wars and Griffey Jr. Baseball By Chip and Jonathan Carter Tribune Media Services Get ready for ... The Dolphin. That's the code name for the new Nintendo system due to hit these shores by Christmas 2000. That was the biggest news to come out of the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, the huge game convention held recently in Los Angeles. Game makers showed more than 2,500 new titles and conventioneers partied with the likes of Beck, The Offspring and Goldie. But the Nintendo announcement stole the show. The $1 billion deal has IBM making a custom chip -- based on its PowerPC processor -- for the Nintendo system, while Matsushita will provide a digital video disc drive. DreamCast, the new system due in the United States this fall from Sega and a slew of powerhouse partners, had a stronger than expected show with titles like Castlevania Resurrection, House of the Dead 2, NFL Blitz 2000 and Quarterback Club 2000. That's good news for Sega, since DreamCast could have gotten swallowed up in the shadow of new PlayStation and Nintendo systems due out next year, and plenty of strong games due in coming months for both of those companies' current industry stalwarts. On the horizon for the PlayStation and N64 -- and the best of what was on display at E3 -- are Perfect Dark (known in the industry as Goldeneye 2), Donkey Kong 64, Command & Conquer, Pokemon Stadium, and Rainbow 6 for the N64; Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Gran Turismo 2 and Final Fantasy VIII for PlayStation; and Quake II for both systems. Then, of course, came the game that got our vote for strangest thing we've seen since Shaq-Fu: Wu-Tang -- Shaolin Style, a PlayStation brawler featuring good old Dirty and the boys. Weird, weird, weird. Very weird. STAR WARS: EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE, FOR PLAYSTATION -- This was one of the big hits at E3, for obvious reasons. Sure the movie tie-in's strong, but this game more than stands on its own. You'll find yourself playing as four different characters from the movie in this straightforward action/adventure: Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, Queen Amidala, and Captain Panaka. The plot follows the movie closely (we won't recap it in consideration of those who haven't made it to the theater yet), and you'll find yourself in many of the movie's environments. You'll also find yourself in new areas of the Star Wars universe, expanding on the movie's two-hours with plenty of side quests that propel and relate to the story. Add in eye-popping graphics and more than 3,000 lines of dialogue and you have one terrific Star Wars adventure. JONATHAN SAYS : Wow. May the Force be with you, dude. A+. CHIP SAYS : This is the game I was crying for a couple of weeks ago. It's the perfect complement to the movie, since it lets you expand on the two hours you spent in the theater. Instead of a simple afternoon in the Star Wars universe, you can stay there for days. Now if we can just get something like it for the N64... A+. OVERALL RATING: A+ -- BUY IT FOR AGES 8 AND UP. KEN GRIFFEY JR.'S SLUGFEST, FOR N64 -- This one features a couple of innovations and looks pretty good, but on the whole it's something of a disappointment. It's pure arcade-style baseball -- fast-paced, with lots of bleeps and bloops and funny noises, quick hits, quick throws -- the sort of thing absolutely guaranteed to give baseball purists seizures. So OK, baseball purists can be a pain in the neck. What about regular folks? Sadly, they won't be much happier with Griffey's Slugfest. The game play is kind of clunky, with constantly shifting camera views that leave you a step behind what's going on, resulting in a nagging sense of confusion and frustration -- imagine living in MTV veejay Jesse Camp's head and you get the idea. One thing we do like is the batting interface. You can move back and forth in the box (hear that, Acclaim?) and still have a batting cursor -- in this case, a blue, teardrop-shaped outline that represents the area you'd actually be able to cover with the bat when swinging. It's a great idea, and we're sure it'll be the next must-have-it feature in video baseball games. On the downside, all the players have the same size batting targets, whether they're super sluggers or career .200 hitters. Also, there's no option that lets you simply make contact or swing for the fences. Another plus is the action and reaction times of the infielders. That's one of the hardest things to get right in video baseball -- either everybody gets an infield hit or no one does -- but Nintendo's managed to recreate infield play believably, and with some great animations to boot. You get all the real teams and stadia, with adequately up-to-date rosters (you can create your own players as well), and you can play a variety of seasons and modes. But overall, this one just lacks oomph. It's that rare game from Nintendo that's missing something, that doesn't have that overall magic feeling you expect from the Big N. And in the end, that unfortunately means that Griffey Jr.'s Slugfest just isn't a whole lot of fun to play. JONATHAN SAYS -- I'm not a baseball purist, and I'd still rather play All-Star Baseball 2000. There's some fun stuff in Slugfest -- like the super fastballs and other arcade goofs -- but not enough to win me over. C. CHIP SAYS -- Lord knows you hate to knock a game made by the Big N, but this one's a day late and a dollar short. It's interesting -- but telling -- that they didn't use the word baseball in the title. C-. OVERALL RATING : C -- RENT IT FOR ALL AGES. TIPS AND TRICKS 3EXTREME, FOR PLAYSTATION -- We've got some great codes for this one. Highlight "memory card" at the main menu and press right. You'll get a new code menu. Use any of these passwords there: For all alien characters, it's ASTROMEN; for all exhibition tracks it's VOYEUR; for all freestyle tracks, it's XXYTO; for some wild secret characters enter DOMINIQUE, LUGNUT AND TP; beat the game with one of those characters and you'll get access to a "haunted" freestyle track. Chip & Jonathan Carter are a father/son gaming team who've been twiddling their thumbs professionally since 1990. For more tips, tricks, reviews and news, check us out on-line at http://vgames.webpoint.com/vid/ecol/mainpage . Or e-mail us at [email protected] . Got a question? An inside tip you'd like to share? Write to Chip and Jonathan Carter in care of this newspaper. While they cannot respond individually, they will answer questions of general interest in their column. (C) 1999 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC. Techno file index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA